Many of you know that I teach an online course called Distance Learning Strategies, which is basically a combination of study skills and technology skills, with a lot of goal setting and reflective exercises along the way.
One of the topics mentioned in the textbook is a concept called "C Fever." The idea is that all of your tasks can be broken down by level of priority (A being the highest, C being the lowest). Normally, you would probably have quite a few C-level tasks on your to-do list, while maybe you would only have one or two A-level tasks.
"C Fever" is when you embrace the urge to start crossling all of the C's off your task list. The good thing about this is that your list is getting shorter; the bad thing about this is that you are still not accomplishing your highest-priority tasks.
I really struggle with this. For example, right now I have two MAJOR have-to-be-done-by-the-end-of-the-week-or-else projects to do. ("Only two?" you ask. Well, it's summer. And quite frankly, I was pretty excited today to be able to say that I had finished the last project that was supposed to be done in April.)
There are, of course, many other things that I also need to be doing in addition to these two A-level items, and then there is one particular other C-level project that requires immense effort and time (not to mention: a ridiculous mess in my office), and it's not one of my two A-level tasks, but it affects a lot of other people and they keep pestering me about it.
At what point do you say, "Nope, I'm sorry, but I have an A-level task to do today. Your project will have to wait"? Or can you even say that?
I am profoundly guilty of wanting to cross C-level tasks off my list--not because I feel a compulsive need to do them (though I do), but because I am weary of dealing with people's queries about why whatever project that is most important to them isn't done and when it will be done, etc.
Sometimes I just want to get people off my back. Is that so terrible?
Or is it better to truly stick to my "priorities" and make the rest of the world wait while I finish the task that seems most important to me (or even--let's be frank--the task that leads to the greatest benefit for the university)?
I don't know. It kind of seems like either way you do it, you lose.
2 comments:
Focusing on your A tasks makes sense of course though the flip side is that there is some value to getting people off their backs. I know a guy who is trying to save money / pay off debt etc but went out and got a new car. His reasoning was that the car he was currently driving belonged to a friend of his and him not paying this friend off yet was hampering their relationship. So it was worth it to him to pay the extra to salvage the friendship. I'm not sure I agree that that means that he had to buy a new car but the point was valid I thought.
I'm not sure if this relates to your topic but it's what came to mind :-)
I always seem to have the same problem. Maybe this is why I can never get anything done *in advance* of when it's due? I think part of it is that the big important things always seem to be more time-consuming and complex. It's so much easier to do ten things that require little to no thought than to slog your way through something major. Especially since at the end of a day of C-level projects you can say, "I've accomplished ten things!" but at the end of a day of working on a big thing, you haven't necessarily finished it. But one thing to remember is that this is *your* priority list. Other people can't make it for you. Other people may (and sometimes should) play a role in where you place things on your list, but if you try to make your priority list match what everyone else thinks it should be, you'll go crazy. After all, you can't please all of the people all of the time.
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